


Please don't stop loving me

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern!AU, First love isn't always a fairytale, sometimes it's a greek tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please don't stop loving me

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I write fic while listening to country music...

_In the back of that red ragtop, she said please don't stop loving me_

      Ned meets Ashara for the first time in Biology 101 on the first day of college. She's sitting next to him all dark hair, pale, creamy skin, and the smell of lavender. When it's time to choose lab partners, she turns to him with a smile so bright and beautiful it would put the sun to shame, and he finds himself falling into eyes the color of violets and he swears he stops breathing. He is nervous and shy around her, he barely speaks to her for the first few classes, until she drags him to the library to research a project and suddenly he can't stop talking to her. By the third week, he feels as though he's known her all his life. 

     

They're inseparable by the end of the year, and Robert and Brandon don't believe him when he says they're not sleeping together no matter how many times he swears they're not. It's not as though he hasn't thought about it, he's lost count of the number of times he's woken with a sticky wetness in his shorts after dreaming of long limbs of pale, creamy, white skin; long, dark hair that smells of lavender, and eyes of violet that he could drown himself in. But their relationship remains relatively platonic until the last few months (although they don't realize it at the time that they're the last.) It's at one of the sorority parties, everyone's drunk and pairing off, that she pushes him against the wall and kisses him breathless and he swears he'll never find another woman who can make him feel this way.

    The first time they make love (He makes love to her,not fuck, never fuck), it's in the back of her car down by the lake and he's losing himself in feel of her body, the smell of her hair, and the way she keeps saying his name over, and over again _("GodNedYes! Don't stop Ned, Don't stop, Oh please,nednednednedNED! Don't stop!")_  In the morning, he get's back to his dorm room to find a message from Benjen on the phone. _"Brandon and Dad were killed in a wreck last night. You need to come home Ned."_  

     He has to move back home, he'll finish his degree online, Benjen is only in middle school and his little brother needs him. He says goodbye to Ashara in the back of her car down by the lake, taking his time worshiping her body with his hands, his mouth... He doesn't know when he'll see her again and she makes no promises to him when he asks her to call, write, anything to stay in touch. Two months down the road when there's still no word from her, he'll think about her silence and feel like an idiot for not seeing the signs.

     

He tries to move on, tries to forget, because the pain of losing his father and older brother is only compounded by the pain of her cutting him off so abruptly. He meets Catelyn Tully and she's nothing like Ashara. Where Ashara was moonlight and sea breeze and violets, Cat is sunlight, and meadows and forget-me-nots. Ashara's violet eyes had been filled with mystery and passion, Cat's bright blue eyes are filled with a calm serenity and a steady peaceful understanding. She loves him with a calming, soothing kind of love that is like a balm on his still healing emotional wounds and he accepts it because he needs it.

A year later he's marrying her, and when they send out the invitations he slips one in for Ashara, writing down the address for her parents house, hoping they'll let her know. He just wants her to know.

      When he sees her at the reception, she's a vision in lilac, and his heart stops and he know in that moment that he'll never love Cat the way he loves Ashara. He escapes the throng of well wishers and follows her out into the parking lot. She's leaning into the backseat of that same old car when he hears a baby cry. When she straightens up, she's holding a little boy about five months old, with black hair and eyes the same color grey as his.

       When he's holding the son he didn't know he had, _"I named him Jon"_ , leaning against the door of her car (and when he thinks about the fact that they made this life together on the back seat of this same car, he feels nostalgic in a way that shakes him to his core) he asks her why. Why she never called, why she never said anything, why didn't she just tell him? So many why's. She looks at him with those eyes and she says "Because I knew you would want to marry me, and you already had so much on your shoulders." The truth hits him like a ton of bricks, and he realizes that if he hadn't tried to forget, if he hadn't chosen Cat, they would be a family.

      He's startled by the sound of a throat clearing and he turns to see his best man Howland standing a few feet, looking awkwardly from him, to Ashara, to the baby in his arms, "It's time to cut the cake Ned. They sent me to come get you."

Ashara takes Jon and buckles him back into his car seat. Ned grabs her by the arm before she gets into the driver's seat. "Ash, I want ...I want to be there for him, I want to be a part of his life." He knows the look on his face is close to desperate, but he's his son too, dammit. Ashara looks at him with those violet eyes and then leans in to kiss him on the cheek. "Goodbye Ned. Have a nice time on your honeymoon." And then he's watching her drive away with his son and half of his heart and he turns to head back in to the reception, back to Cat, and he tries not to think about what might have been.

 

_I was back on that red ragtop, on the day she stopped loving me - Tim McGraw_


End file.
